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{"id":43,"date":"2015-02-15T18:23:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T00:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/so-i-finally-saw-american-sniper.html"},"modified":"2015-02-24T21:14:47","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T03:14:47","slug":"so-i-finally-saw-american-sniper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/so-i-finally-saw-american-sniper.html","title":{"rendered":"So I finally saw American Sniper. . ."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

What did I think? \u00a0I didn\u2019t think that the move romanticized Chris Kyle; although he repeated that his goal was solely to protect his country, the movie made it clear that his repeated returns to battle were, yes, about patriotism, but also about more than that \u2014 about finishing what he started, and feeling bound together with his comrades, and just not being able to let go of the mission. \u00a0And was he bloodthirsty? \u00a0Not particularly \u2014 it was a war, after all. \u00a0Was he insufficiently sensitive to the local Iraqis? \u00a0That\u2019s a foolish standard, to expect soldiers to be \u201csensitive\u201d to their enemies, who are, after all, attempting to kill them.<\/p>\n

There were three things I didn\u2019t like much about the movie: \u00a0first, the timeline didn\u2019t seem to make sense. \u00a0He enlists before 9-11, and, based on the movie\u2019s storytelling, appears to be in Iraq nearly continuously, with short return stays, until he finally leaves the service; at which point, during a counseling session, a psychologist says, \u201cyou were in-country for 1,000 days,\u201d at which point I felt a bit disoriented. \u00a0(Wikipedia<\/a> says he was in the service from 1999 to 2009.) \u00a0So clearly the movie is omitting lots of time that he spent in the U.S., presumably on-base somewhere, in order to make his wife\u2019s pleas that he stay with her more heart-rending.<\/p>\n

The movie then shows a few scenes of his spending time with disabled vets, and suddenly it\u2019s 2013 and his wife is saying, paraphrased, \u201cI\u2019m so glad you\u2019re recovered from your PTSD\u201d \u2014 which is my second gripe, that there was so little time given over to this part of the story. \u00a0Maybe there wasn\u2019t enough source material here \u2014 maybe his \u201cPTSD recovery\u201d really didn\u2019t consist of more than time, and the visits with vets that the movie shows briefly. \u00a0But it felt too easy. <\/p>\n

My third gripe? \u00a0The last battle scene was too much \u2014 by then I\u2019d had pretty much all I could take of shooting and death.<\/p>\n

Side note: \u00a0the commercials before the movie were clearly based on the expectation that the audience consisted of adult couples \u2014 including one by Trojan. \u00a0And the trailers? \u00a0Well, those had nothing to do with Valentine\u2019s Day, and everything to do with the fact that there are, apparently, a large number of rather violent movies coming out, or already in the theater. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"